


no need to ask

by notthequiettype



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Gen, Menstruation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthequiettype/pseuds/notthequiettype
Summary: "Any, like, uh. Special requests?""Something with an applicator.""They make ones without?"





	no need to ask

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite alternate My Chemical universes to explore are ones where one or both of the Ways are girls. It's just Mikey this time.

Ray runs into Mikey, literally, just outside the dressing room, catching her elbows to keep from completely taking her out. "Hey, you okay?" He rubs at the knob of bone with his thumb. She was pacing and Ray knows that can be a bad sign before a show.

"What?" Mikey finally looks at him. "Oh, yeah. Just. Fuck. Have you seen Gee?"

"He's warming up already, why?"

Mikey groans. "Shit."

Ray adjusts the gentle grip he has on her arms and squeezes. "Hey, what's up? Talk to me."

Mikey gives him a watery smile. "I'm fine, just having a minor emergency." Ray's eyes go wide and Mikey waves her hands at him. "Not like, an emergency emergency."

"Then what kind of emergency?"

"I need a tampon."

"Oh," Ray says. "You want me to grab Gee?"

"No, if he's warming up already-- He keeps spares in his duffle for me sometimes because I forget but I don't want to deal with going out to the bus if I'm not sure there are any."

"You don't have any on the bus?"

Mikey sighs. "Turns out I'm not very good at this whole thing."

Ray laughs, soft. "I'll go on a mission."

"No, dude. It's fine, I'll ask around." Ray would almost believe it was no big deal, but Mikey's voice wavers a little. He knows how much she hates dealing with strangers.

"No, really, I got this. Go make fun of Gee's warm-up. I'll be quick. Promise."

"You sure?" Mikey looks a little skeptical, which Ray resents. He can totally handle this.

"Yeah. No big deal. Any, like, uh. Special requests?"

"Something with an applicator."

"They make ones without?"

Mikey does the little snort laugh that makes her nose crinkle up. "Yeah, dude."

Ray asks around the venue first and all of them look disgusted while saying "No" or "I don't fucking know" and then one of them laughs like it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard, which, what the fuck, these sexist fucking assholes.

He finds two different bathrooms with dispensers, but one's out of order completely and the other one is out of tampons. Ray puts in a quarter and pockets a pad anyway, just in case.

They're 20 minutes to stage call and he's kind of panicking because he told Mikey he would handle it and he's fucking going to if it kills him. Also, he's finding out Mikey's brand and whatever else and putting it on every fucking rider from here on out.

Desperation breeds inspiration, he guesses, and he ends up grabbing Worm's arm where he's standing in the hall waiting for their move. "Are there kids out there?" Ray asks, gesturing toward the venue exit to the buses.

"Yeah."

"Girls?"

Worm raises an eyebrow at him. "Yeah."

Ray tugs on his arm. "Come on."

Worm says, "You're on in fifteen," but follows him anyway.

"It won't take that long."

Ray's greeted by the reality of what he's about to do at the exact moment he's also greeted by about 30 eager, screaming fans behind a barricade. He knows from experience that they're mostly kids who couldn't afford tickets and it kills him that he can't just send them all inside.

Ray waves a little and Worm looks at him, questioning.

"Can you make them stop screaming?"

Worm raises his hands above his head and then whistles piercingly. The kids settle to almost-silence and it's impressive and mildly terrifying.

"Uh," Ray says, brilliantly. "Hey guys. I have a favor to ask."

There's a cheer that Worm quiets with a gesture immediately.

Ray swallows and tries to muster some courage from the anger he was feeling five minutes ago. It almost works. "Do any of you have a spare tampon?"

Ray watches most of the guys grimace and another mime gagging, listens to the quiet snickering, and awkward shifting. He can feel a Gerard-level speech building in his throat, but he doesn't really have time.

Instead he says, "I know people act like you should be embarrassed by it, but you shouldn't be because it's just part of life. Also walking around bleeding is actually really fucking metal." There's some laughter at that and Ray grins. "Plus, you'd be doing me a huge favor if you could hook me up right now and I'll make sure you get all the credit."

A couple girls at the far side of the group wave him over and produce a handful of brightly colored packages. Ray has no idea what he's looking for, but they look vaguely like what he's seen Mikey produce from her backpack so he figures they'll work. Beggars can't be choosers anyway. He takes them kind of hesitantly and grins at them, bright. "You guys are awesome, seriously."

All three of them laugh and Ray can see them relax a little. "What are your names and what do you want signed?"

Ray heads back in after signing seemingly everything they had on them that would take a sharpied scribble and leans in to tell Worm to hook them up. He nods and Ray feels just a tiny bit powerful.

He heads for the dressing room and feels an idiotic surge of pride when Mikey looks up at him, cautiously hopeful. He presses the packages into her hand, grinning.

"Holy shit," she says, her mouth curved up at one side with her teeth showing. Ray's stupidly happy to have put that look on her face. "Where'd you find them?"

"He asked the fans out back," Frank says, coming in the door, laughing.

Mikey raises an eyebrow at Ray and Ray feels himself flush. "You had a need. I got it met."

"Yeah and three fifteen-year-old girls at barricade talking about how one of their tampons is inside Mikey Way." Frank is delighted and Ray wants to kill him a little.

Mikey just shrugs. "They can have the fucking applicator as a souvenir when I'm done with it."

Ray laughs and then loses it when he sees the horrified look on Frank's face. "Don't give our fans your bodily fluids!"

Gerard finally joins them, apparently warmed-up to his satisfaction. "You spit on the crowd every night."

"I don't _bleed_ on them."

"What about after you got your wisdom teeth out," Bob says.

"I wasn't thinking!"

"What about when you cut your hand and ended up fucking blood-brothering everyone in the first two rows," Ray adds.

"That wasn't on purpose!"

"What about when you ripped off that callus and fucking anointed me with it?" Gerard says, scoffing.

"You’re not a fan!" Frank says, exasperated. "But fine! Change tampons during the encore and pitch the used one to a fan when the lights come up." He ends with a huff and crosses his arms over his chest.

"You know," Gerard says, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "That would actually be really subversive. Like, not confrontational because you wouldn't be doing it out of anger or anything." Gerard hmms.

"I'm not pulling a Donita Sparks, Gee. I don't have the charisma." Mikey says and disappears into the bathroom.

Gerard yells, "What? You totally have the stage presence for that!" and Ray would laugh except Gerard sounds all earnest and concerned that Mikey doesn't know her value and Ray doesn't want to accidentally end up on the wrong side of that argument.

They take off for the hallway and start their pre-show ritual, shaking out the pent-up energy and yelling the same dumb shit they've been yelling at each other for almost ten years.

Ray thinks about where Mikey is and what she's doing and then wonders why he is. Maybe he's a creep, maybe it's just because he had like, a direct hand in getting her what she needed. He's not grossed out or even uncomfortable, just. Curious, he thinks. Maybe that's creepier.

Gerard had lectured them about period stigma and misogyny and shame all the way back on their first tour while Mikey rolled her eyes and told him to stop being dramatic. 

She and Gerard had a solid five-minute argument about it that only ended when Mikey said, "If I'm the one fucking bleeding then I get to be the one to decide if it's a fucking big deal or not," which had shut Gerard up pretty effectively. 

Mikey never did make a big deal of it, but she never hid her tampons either or tucked them into her sleeves like Ray saw girls do in high school.

Ray had wondered if one of them should say something to Bob when he joined up, if only to avoid Gerard's lecture again, but then Mikey had knocked an open box of tampons out of her bunk in front of him and Bob had knelt down, put them back into the box, handed them to her, and said, "My ex used one of the like, hippie cups."

Mikey had quirked her mouth. "Too hard to empty in a moving bus."

Bob nodded in the way Bob always did and then talked about helping a different girlfriend dig a lost tampon out when they were both drunk and they'd all laughed and Ray had felt a little ashamed that he'd needed Gerard's lecture at all. But then, knowing Bob sometimes just did that to you about all kinds of things.

Mikey takes her place with them side-stage and they do their pep talk/cheer and just before Ray goes to take the steps, Mikey curls her long fingers around his wrist and tugs him toward her a little. She leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Thanks," she says, smiling, wide and soft.

Ray smiles back, broad and happy, face flushed. "Anytime, Mikey Way."

**Author's Note:**

> There are 1800 (and growing) words of period sex that follows this, but I've never gotten around to finishing the bridge that gets from here to there. Someday!


End file.
